FSM/ food vouchers - being sent to wrong parent

[burntbagel]

Hi posting on behalf of someone with this issue (Reposted from chat in case here is better)

Their DC has FSM and they are a UC recipient. Vouchers over the holidays (I never knew this was a thing until now) have always been sent to them. The school has changed this and they’re now being sent to the other parent.

UC parent has child 50/50, other parent is a high earner not in need of funds. School have refused to engage when asked but have just redirected the payments. They then said they send it to the primary carer and not the eligible household and that whoever claims UC is irrelevant. In this instance there is no primary carer and always 50/50 over holidays and the other household is a high earning one.

Has this happened to anyone else? Tried looking at guidance online but can’t quite make sense of it. seems to be DWP guidance re eligible household and for the councils to sort it out.
Thanks

You don't send the vouchers to both parents as then they'd have double the amount! I used to issue vouchers.

I would recommend you ring or email the school, ask to speak to the heads pa and then explain that the voucher is going to the wrong person and can they ask the person responsible for vouchers to check who is the highest priority on the schools MIS like SIMs or Arbour. Explain you are the person who made the application originally and that for some reason the payment has gone to the wrong parent. All they need to do is make you the highest priority parent on the system for the change to take effect in the future. To get the last vouchers change, someone needs to log into the system and manually change the email address. Ask the heads pa if they can get the data officer to do this.

They wouldn't have double the amount as the code can only be used once - at least this was how my LA used to do them. I guess other councils may have done it differently.

Either way, the school can solve this and there's no reason for them to be obstructive about it. They're in the business of helping children so they should be willing!

Of course not all councils are giving vouchers in holidays any longer. Cost cutting. Perhaps the other parent doesn't have them

The money for the vouchers comes from the Household Support Fund which the government is still giving out. It's up to councils how they use it, although giving supermarket vouchers to FSM kids is a simple way to get it to the more vulnerable families.

Did the vouchers definitely go out this holiday? In my London borough, they gave out three weeks worth of vouchers during the October half term which also covered the Christmas holidays. So no vouchers at Christmas.

They did go out this year for that council yes
interesting about the code that would make sense to go to both parents in that case, but yes I think school will be obstructive on who receives them.

As long as the child is fed that's all that matters surely? That's what they are for.

Why do you think this? Why on earth would they? "Schools" are people and most people would want the lower income parent to get the vouchers. I've done the same thing, changed the parent as it went to dad and mum emailed in and said she was the one on benefits and dad was a high earner and I just changed it over. Simples.

thanks for replies
the impression from the school’s response back about it was they were not being helpful due to the primary carer part not the financial part
but this is a incorrect and b doesn’t make sense in this context

Who have you spoken to in the school? Was it just the office giving a standard answer, or has this come from the head/Pupil Premium lead? I would take this further using their complaints procedure to find out how this has happened.

I would also go back to the council. In my borough, the schools order the voucher codes from the council who allocate them to each family, and then give the codes to the school to distribute directly. The codes are strictly audited and I'm sure would be interested that they didn't end up with the correct parent.

The FSM entitlement being carried through is actually a policy blip of sorts. It was linked to the change in free school meal eligibility (reducing numbers eligible). In response to criticism the government pledged that no child would lose their free school meals so every child entitled at that time kept/keeps the eligibility to the end of education, regardless of change of circumstances.

I work in a primary school and have been responsible for ordering the fsm vouchers in the past. I basically had to log in to the system, click to select all free school meal children and it pulls through the relevant parents information from the School's mis database and then emails them the voucher/code. I would imagine it is to do with which parent's details are the highest priority on the school's system and that is affecting whose details are pulled through. It is very simple for the school to change, I would have thought most schools would have sent the vouchers to either the main carer (if the parents don't share 50/50 care) or to the parent whose national insurance details were used to assess eligibility (assuming the parents were separated when the claim was made).